"One arrives at style only with atrocious effort, with fanatical and devoted stubbornness."
- Gustave Flaubert

Stubbornness

My voice was incredulous. "We're heading back to Earth?"

Sumeragi was smiling pleasantly. "We should be breaking into Earth's atmosphere by the next hour. Can you confirm us on that, Feldt?"

"Yes, the Ptolemaios will enter the atmospheric layer over the Middle East in an hour as planned," Feldt's voice resounded from a corner, genuinely warm and enthusiastic.

"Wait a minute. Middle East?"

The Celestial Being crew watched in amusement as I struggled to figure out what was going on. It had been a few weeks since I had been accepted, and I had tried to learn as much as I could during that span of time, which included general world affairs plus space technology. I was making progress, no doubt - but there were still plenty of things I needed to know.

At the same time, I did my best to establish a basic communication with everyone on the Ptolemaios. This was perhaps the hardest task of all. It seemed that a few were still reluctant to accept me as one of the crew – with Mileina Vashti being one of them. She would answer my questions and give me small smiles every now and then, but I could feel the uneasiness behind her smooth, cheerful facade.

Then there was the one-and-only Tieria Erde, who still kicked up royal fits every now and then. It was obvious he regretted allowing me to access Veda anytime I wanted as he would often spot me there – whether it was before breakfast or after dinner, treading into the database system. Still, he was a person of integrity – and never attempted to retract back this given privilege of mine. I had hoped that he would open up and talk to me like a regular person, but I guess I still needed more time to prove myself. So far, the only improvement was that he had stopped the death threats – though the glares and cynicism continued.

The rest of the Meisters were friendly to me, with the exception of Setsuna, who was more of a loner – as what was described to me by Feldt. Allelujah and Lockon were patient and easygoing, and I had come to enjoy their company after spending long hours in the hangar, fixing sizzled components and rewiring machine parts. I especially enjoyed Lockon's presence, for he always seemed relaxed and casual – speaking to me in a breezy sort of way that made me feel safe and comfortable.

"We're heading to the Katharon base," Sumeragi explained, breaking me out of my reverie.

"Isn't that the…" I racked my brains, "…anti-Federation resistance group…the one against the A-Laws?"

She looked cheerful. "That's the one."

Several questions tickled my mind – questions that involved the reason of heading to the Katharon base and how the people there were like – but I decided not to ask. Whatever it was, I could figure it out later.

"We still have an hour to go, Eri. You should go and have a rest." Feldt was voicing out her concern, despite her concentration on the screen. I was still rooming with her, and she knew how erratic my sleeping pattern could be.

"Eri, you've been working real hard."

"Yeah, go ahead."

"We can fix up couple a' machines ourselves."

I felt warmth wash over me as others backed up her statement. It was true. I had been putting in all my effort in everything I did. To make things worse, the dreams I had were still persistent. Other than Tieria, I had decided not to tell anyone else about this. The last thing I wanted was for Celestial Being to have suspicious thoughts about me.

And of course I was tired. Who wouldn't be?

"I…well…thank you."

However, instead of heading back to the room, I made my way to Veda's terminal instead.

The familiar sensation of being in Veda's terminal engulfed me as I dropped myself within. I wanted to cry out in pleasant joy at the bright, soulful colors that were present – they were simply just so beautiful. Many never had the chance to experience this, and for every single time I entered, I was filled with gratefulness – despite the fact that I had to endure the consequences of an Innovade built in the form of a teenage boy that was always tense, moody and on the high alert.

He hadn't been present in the meeting room, which made me unsurprised to see him floating nearby, his purple space suit clashing against the vibrant background.

"They wanted you to rest," Tieria said, scrutinizing me carefully, tracking my every move.

"No one asked you to spy on our conversation with your nifty Innovade abilities, seeing as you weren't even there to begin with."

"I do not spy. It is essential that I know the outcome of all discussions that involve the wellbeing of Celestial Being."

I rolled my eyes. "Technically, they're the same thing. I'll be out of here as soon as I'm done – then you can continue with whatever spying or meditation sessions as you please."

He ignored the jibe. "As soon as you're done with what?"

"As soon as I'm done with…whatever I'm doing!" I threw my hands up, frustrated.

"Explain."

I groaned. After all the persistent dreams that were clear as day, I finally decided that these were distant memories instead of dreams – which made me believe that I had a brother existing somewhere out there. This also meant that I did all I could to seek out information of him whenever I could – and it meant that I needed Veda's terminal for knowledge-hunting.

No, I haven't had any luck so far. The data stored by Veda was aplenty, and I had barely scratched the surface. Every day I would immerse myself upon pile after pile of data, and there was nothing that could help me, nothing that suggested I was getting anything useful out of this.

Still, there was no way I was ever going to tell Tieria anything about my thirst for the truth. Up until now, he still dismissed my frequent dreams as "illogical human physiology".

In fact, he had never questioned my reasons to enter Veda's terminal indefinitely, but somehow today things were going a little differently. Well, it was a shame then – he was not going to learn anything about me – not for today anyway.

"It's nothing."

"If you are planning to..."

I caught his murderous gaze and laughed. "I'm not planning on surrendering any information to the enemy, nor am I keen on blowing up a ship that I'm currently in. I thought you would have stopped being so tense by now."

Besides, I was just too exhausted to even think about a massacre.

He chose not to reply, and I quickly dove into the sea of information before he provided anymore distractions. Running through information in Veda's terminal was like flipping through the pages of a book – it was just that the former required higher amounts of mental strength. Normal humans, according to Sumeragi - who had explained it haltingly while drunk on alcohol to me a few days ago, did not have the ability to do this – it was just too trying a task that consumed too much energy.

Today, I carefully sought out information that were related to Katharon and the A-Laws. The search on the latter provided me a whole lot of data and I gritted my teeth, shoving aside the unnecessary ones. I would only take what I needed.

There was something else that stood behind the A-Laws though. I frowned. Innovators. I hadn't bothered to make a thorough search about them yet. Somehow, I was disturbed and yet undisturbed by the mentioning of them. That didn't exactly make much sense now, did it?

"Well, it's time for me to find out what exactly is the deal with them."

However, before I could go any further, I felt myself being yanked backwards, out of the hazy fuzz of knowledge and back out into the terminal. I blinked. Tieria was glaring at me, his eyes now a solid gold. I immediately knew it was him who had intervened, and I trembled with suppressed anger.

"You're interrupting."

His eyes were hard and unkind. "I will not have anyone, much less a human like you, access Veda in a time of fatigue. Learn your place."

That was it. I wanted to strangle him. However, as soon as I opened my mouth to give him a piece of my mind, the strangest thing happened. My knees buckled and I doubled over, feeling weak all over. I tried to stand, to flail my arms, to tell him that he was over assuming – but unfortunately, it looked like he was right. I was truly suffering from fatigue, and skimming through Veda's database had not helped – but had in fact, worsened the situation.

I looked up, feeling more and more irritation surge through me as my weakness showed. Tieria glanced at me impassively. I readied myself for more insults and reprimands – it was what he was the best in, wasn't he?

Instead, he surprised me by flinging me over his shoulder and said, "Pathetic."

I wanted to give him a kick and tell him I wasn't pathetic, but he was helping me out, so I chose to remain silent. Besides, if I struggled, I knew he would gladly throw me onto the floor, and that would hurt. Being on his shoulder wasn't that bad anyway - if anything, it was much more comforting than the cold, sterile hangar I had to be in for many hours a day.

I squinted. Something was going on. The flurry of excitement was apparent, and the ship was not going through a smooth ride at the moment.

Then I heard Feldt's voice carry through the air, loud and clear. "Signal received from the Katharon base – docking commencing in three hundred and twenty seconds!"

I gave a mental shrug. Guess I could always do with meeting some new people from Earth.

Tieria flinging a girl over his shoulder...I can never, ever imagine that scene happening in the series. I tried to make him as in-character as possible, hope that worked. [shrug] And, no POV switchies this time.

You know what to do! Read and review. :)

-Anne